


Haribo Hearts

by Morie_mordant



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pidge Big Bang 2018, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and i mean generally, it's just a stream of her thoughts, like wow i'm not convinced we have souls and now we have soulmates?, pidge can't help it, putting the slow in slowburn, she overthinks everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 15:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14381394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morie_mordant/pseuds/Morie_mordant
Summary: "Once we are born, we begin to forgetThe very reason we cameBut youI’m sure I’ve metLong before the night the stars went outWe’re meeting up again"





	Haribo Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Summary is a line from U2 - Hold me close
> 
> Big thanks to my beta http://sondeneige.tumblr.com who helps my this-is-not-my-first-language ass make this much easier to read.  
> Around of applause for these darlings, who were kind enough to draw arts for my wanna-be-a-soumate-story  
> http://zoemaru.tumblr.com  
> https://translunarcrafts.tumblr.com  
> http://anaake-art.tumblr.com
> 
> And of course https://pidgebigbang.tumblr.com who organized all this madness!! Much respect and love!! xx

“But you can love other people, right?”

Mum falters, and together over her and the dough, which she has stopped kneading, settles an odd silence. Like when someone asks for a question to be repeated, as if they have not heard it, but they definitely have, they are just trying to buy time to put the social puzzle together, to understand if it is a trick or a genuine question, because, really, who asks that kind of question anyway?

“Of course,” she says eventually, pinching Katie’s cheek and leaving sticky fingerprints, “I love you, for one. And Matt.”

Katie frowns and wipes her cheek with sudden ferocity.

“You know what I mean. Of course…”

_Of course you love us. We are your children._

_Of course you love dad. He is your soulmate._

The pie ends up mediocre, but after all, mum has never claimed to be a perfect housewife. Katie’s parents met in the office. Two kids, a dog, guests sometimes on Fridays and a few journalists here and there. They are a normal middle-class family, a specimen of the intellectual elite. They have never been stopped in the middle of a street for an autograph, but the wall of the staircase is covered in photos from school science fairs. In these photos, Sam Holt is always surrounded by excited kids with their volcanoes and planes and other projects.

Katie glares at these photos, munching on a piece of the pie, which has been highly praised by dad and has always been completely tasteless. There is no point in lowering her eyes to her shoulder, the lines are not visible. Not yet, only under the bright light and only if she squints, she can make out some general figures – but she can feel a little swelling under the tips of her fingers. First there was just an itchy patch of skin, and now this. Her mark is beginning to appear, right when dad and Matt have begun to get ready for their Kerberos expedition, and they are going without her, and it means that she would have to apply to the Garrison in their absence. Her application is going to be successful, no doubt, how can they reject one of the Holts?

Before, she used to love the idea of being accepted to the Garrison, but when all the action happens somewhere else, and she will be stuck in the dusty classrooms, behind a tiny desk.While dad and Matt will be exploring the universe and will be the first people to go so deep in space?

And now, of all times, she is reminded about all that soulmate crap. Someone’s writing, someone’s name on her, like a stamp, an official sign that now she belongs to someone else. No funny story at the table in fifty years: “Oh, I met your grandpa by accident…” Because everything is set. She knows. They know. Everybody knows.

To be fair, it is not like she has her doubts about her parents loving each other. Nonetheless, isn’t it so cruelly ironic? So many movies and books, plots and stories about a person, who is about to get married but meets their soulmate and it changes their whole life? They’re unable to resist, and is it realistically possible to resist, and if it is, why doesn’t anybody resist?

It may be another way for Mother Nature to ensure the procreation of humanity. But what about people who cannot biologically or psychologically or plainly do not wish to procreate? To begin with, there would not be any same-sex soulmates, then. They have been taught in history about the LGBT movement, and one of their mottos has been: “The Universe is never wrong”.

The Universe is never wrong.

Katie shakes off the crumbs and leans on the banister, listening to soft voices of her parents in the living room. So what would Descartes think about all this? Did he have a soulmate?

Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. Without doubting there is no existing. Then how can they study the theory of knowledge and that blind faith in the authority is dangerous, and then just accept something so unexplainable? Some time ago people believed the Earth was flat, and they imprisoned Galileo because he doubted that. If now they know that they can be wrong about something as big as the Earth, how can they not doubt ‘the universe’s choice’?

Katie does not believe in God, and refuses to abide by a random choice.

The invisible mark on her skin is itching.

*

“We’re so sorry.”

“My condolences.”

“Katie, tears are normal. It’s okay to be sad.”

But the thing is, she is not sad. She is angry. She swallows hot tears, peeved by her own powerlessness, with mum’s apathy, with Iverson’s annoyed expression that morphs into pity, with the guard’s indifference, when they drag her out. Let them not even hope she would comply. That she would surrender, she twists and turns like a crazy cat. She scratches and bites them, tries to kick or head butt anyone at arm’s length, and she screams, screams, screams – cadets, who pass by, look at her, immediately recognizing the Holts’ girl.

“Poor thing.”

“What a nightmare.”

Sympathetic faces are fusing into a whirlpool, and it makes her sick, and she throws up in the ‘ladies room’, her whole body shuddering. Sobs become coughs, then slowly turn into frantic hiccups, and it is all lies that it gets better. It doesn’t. Not a bit. Just worse. Because the Kerberos accident has already become yesterday’s news, and they “have to move forward”. Because they never told them the truth, thinking that some quick excuses would ever be enough to bury two empty coffins, so they would stop asking and simply give up. The flowers at the little memorial have not withered yet, and already everyone seems to have forgotten about Sam and Matt Holt. And Shiro. He hasn’t even got a coffin, as he had wanted to be cremated, for his ashes to be scattered from as high as a bird flies. He has even chosen a pilot to perform that. Yet there is nothing to scatter.

She grits her teeth. Not yet. No coffins and no ashes yet. Even if everyone gives up, even if nobody else in the whole world gives a shit about them – she will not forget, she will find them and bring them back. Everyone knows the Holts’ girl, but no one knows a Gunderson’s boy.

It gives her its own twisted glee. She has never been considered pretty, not that it ever bothered her. Her palms are too big, her knees knobby, frog-like eyes and of course her bushy eyebrows, wide and expressive. Everyone has agreed, though, that her hair was nice. Long and wavy, only if difficult to tame into a plait. Gnawing her lip, she butchers her long hair, she relished the thought that this ‘Lance’ would never meet Katie Holt, and Pidge Gunderson is nobody’s soulmate.

She should have known better.

The boy is all legs and arms, all jumpy and jerky, like a grasshopper. His friend lifts his arms helplessly, mouthing a silent sorry. Pidge is still shaken by the fact that Iverson let her be – or not her, but a ‘distant cousin’ of Matt’s, a live copy of a diseased boy, so Iverson doesn’t look too closely, averts his eye to avoid the eye contact for longer than two seconds, he’s “yes yes, cadet, try your best” and Pidge would never give him a reason to look at ‘him’ more closely. So she misses the moment, when the boy’s arms snakes around her shoulder, and she is struck by an electric bolt, she is suffocating and feverish, and before the boy opens his mouth to introduce himself, Pidge already knows his name.

Lance.

*

She never says it out loud, but she kind of envies the rest of the team.

Pidge realizes that while scrubbing the sink in the kitchen. Thanks to her allergy, she is relieved of the dusting duty, because instead of cleaning the table in the common room. Lance started doodling on it, and when she pointed out that he has the worst case of the chicken scratch, he kept poking her nose, which ended up in an endless series of deafening sneezes.

It has been hardly a doodle, to be honest, more like a wiggly writing, a name, repeated all over.

 _Katie Holt, Katie Holt, Katie Holt, Katie Holt, Katie Holt_ – Keith destroys that obsessive scribbling with one wipe, and Lance attacks him of course, because apparently, his mark isn’t quite normal, just a single letter ‘S’, and obviously, he must be super mega jealous of Lance’s amazing soul mate. Hunk grunts disapprovingly, because he has nothing at all, and Lance is quick to apologize for his inattentive words, but still reaches out to smack Keith. Hunk doesn’t hold it against him, because Lance shoots words like he shoots a rifle – carelessly but dead on target – but Hunk is used to it. He is a little bit concerned about not having a mark, but if you have priorities and if you’re not Lance, you realize there’s not much time for romance and soulmates with all the training and the whole universe under oppression from an advanced alien race of violet lizard cats.

So, Keith has a wriggle of a letter for a soulmark, Hunk has none at all and Shiro has lost his mark with his right arm. Not forgetting to mention that soulmates as a concept is unknown to Alteans in general.

When asked, Pidge lies and says that she does not have one either.

“Maybe your soulmate isn’t born or hasn’t hit puberty yet,” Shiro tries to console her. “Mine appeared quite late. I was already thinking I got none at all.”

“Meet me and my sugar baby in thirty years,” Pidge mumbles in reply.

Not that they talk about it often or something – unless you’re Lance, of course – it just pops up now and then, especially when Allura and Coran notice the marks on the actors during the movie night. Coran thinks it’s wonderfully romantic.

More like a premise for groundbreaking disappointment, if you ask Pidge, as she moves on to polish the tap. Lance seems enamored with this imaginary ‘Katie Holt’, he flirts and falls in love with every skirt, because she’s a reflection of his little dream. Because he’s so full of love for the One and Only that he just can’t hold it anymore and the love spills over the edges and covers everyone around. It’s a little bit disturbing. It’s a little bit scary.

Because sooner or later Lance will find out that his sweetheart ‘Katie Holt’ is just scrawny Pidge, who is always sweaty and has moons of dirt under her nails.

Which yet again proves that this whole soulmate thing is crap, because they haven’t suddenly fallen madly in love at first sight. Maybe it has some activation code? Like your soulmate has to address you by the name that is on their soulmark or touch it or something? Does that mean that soulmarks mean nothing for mute people or someone in a situation like Shiro? Figures why he’s so unbothered by the whole ‘lost my soulmark in space’ issue.

After ten thousands years of slumber, the castle has stood up quite well, and yet it still resembles most of all a haunted house. Dust and alien spider webs everywhere, the windows have grown turbid. The exterior of the castle is covered by plates that resemble their solar panels, so there has been enough energy to preserve Allura and Coran’s bodies and coordinate cleaning bots, but many of them got broken or lost throughout the time. The energy also supplied the defense system, so nobody could break in, but at the same time nobody has aired the place for ten thousand years, and the air conditioning system has been defeated by time and lack of sentient presence. 

There seemed to always be a distinct odor in corridors and they even spotted some mold. Usually (always) it’s the cleaning bots’ job, but blabbing something about discipline and necessity of chores for self-organization, Shiro has coerced them into helping out. More likely he couldn’t sleep at night so he busied himself with something while they stayed on Arus. It would be foolish to jump right into the action, while nobody had any idea what has been going on in the Universe for the past thousand years and paladins still didn’t have any sort of training with the Lions. Thus, they have stayed for a while to prepare and catch up.

Pidge wonders who used to sleep in her room and she is grateful that the cleaning bots have removed previous owner’s belongings before she moved in. The paladin uniform has no size, but she had to adjust the seat in the Green Lion. She can’t help but wonder what life had been like then. Allura and Coran do not let too much out, and all the documents are in Altean – they understand each other because of the universal translators, but in order to read stuff, she has to be better than the intermediate level she can read at now.

They have watched a couple of classic Altean movies, too, during the movie nights. Pidge tries to watch them in the evenings, with subtitles rather than translation. Altean language is unlike any language on Earth (not that she personally speaks many, but she’s not a brat who resorts to generalizing, she checked it against any known languages in the system.) It’s difficult to distinguish separate words, as their speech is melodious and mostly consists of vowels. Although Lance’s vocabulary is built on the derivatives of ‘quiznak’, he often joins her. Hunk is busy learning how to pilot with Shiro and after a unanimous vote, he is not allowed to culturally exchange with Coran. However, it has been too little, too late, the damage has already been done. Now they are running laps and exercising to BTS and Girls’ Generation, transmitted throughout the whole castle

*

There are certain things that will most surely turn you listless, that will rob you of any energy and make something as essential and undemanding as a trip to the restroom into a challenge. One of those things is Coran’s enthusiastic account of the adventures of his youth. While the components of these anecdotes individually are unbelievable and would suffice for a next generation of Hollywood movies, and Coran’s manner of speaking is quite engaging, he has a habit of focusing on wrong details, the aspects of these stories that are the complete opposite of cool.

Another one will be writing reports. No explanation necessary. Everyone hates writing reports.

For Pidge, the third one is summer. There was no school in summer and yes, she didn’t like school that much, but sometimes it was nice. Summer was never nice. She knew that her classmates went someplace together or at least keeping contact, FaceTiming, Snapchatting, WhatsApping or otherwise osculating each other through social media. No one has ever sent her a message to ask how her summer was going. She didn’t bother, because she had Matt. He’s never been really popular either.

But then he left for Garrison, where population of nerds is three to one. “Don’t call them nerds,” – often said Dad, - “call them people of extreme passions”. Yeah, for example, he and Matt, who seemed to have an extreme passion for this Shiro guy.  
Shiro was a special kind of nerd, like the mastermind of espionage who managed to blend into the crowd of jocks, but a nerd nonetheless. He could not tell Nitrogen from Sodium (he still tried to drop cringy jokes: are you made of Copper and Tellurium?) but he could draw the star map with his eyes closed and all while piloting a can without an engine through a meteor shower.

Shiro would sometimes come around, but more often than not he would snatch Matt away somewhere, because apparently there was a Buttercup to their Bubbles and Blossom, who resided closer to the Garrison than here. They invited her along, but she didn’t want to be a deadweight, so she refused, reduced to a sulking amoeba at her desk, melting under the July sun, too lazy to open a book or even lift her eyelids, but too hot to have anything more substantial than constant drowsiness.

So one cannot overstate the extent of willpower it requires keeping concentration, while being stuck writing a report under Coran’s guidance, while being horribly sunburnt. Pidge peels off a little piece of dead skin from her nose and sighs. Thanks to conditioning systems, it was nicely cool inside the castle, but she can’t appreciate it, because she’s already a boiled crab and she’s not in the castle, she is in a tent with almost transparent walls. Objectively guys have it worse, because they’re currently digging wells for a nation of desert dwellers, but Pidge is not a very sympathetic person, especially while impersonating Freddie Krueger. Coran remains to look fresh and chirpy, which is beyond annoying.

The planet of eternal July, wonderful. Pidge can’t wait to return to the cold abyss of outer space.

Had they been more careful, the robeast wouldn’t have destroyed the reservoir, the only reservoir for miles and miles of dust and soil so dry it cracks. It is their responsibility (plus there’s a high probability they’re the only ones capable) to build a new system of water supply.

And so they have stayed for a little longer. First day they have worked with Lions, but it proved that the soil was too crumbly and needed a careful approach. They resolved to good old digging and sometimes applying bayards, namely Hunk’s cannon or Lance’s blaster. It was time-consuming, tiring and seemingly unsuccessful – although Allura assured them that they would soon reach underground waters. Pidge got her free pass, when she got sunburned even through damp clothes. Others had to continue.

That’s the kind of work they do everywhere. In Allura’s words: not only fighting, but also rebuilding. Pidge hates all this physical work, but she can’t deny it has its own merits, when they make living a little bit easier for someone. She tries to keep a journal of all the different races and cultures they come across, but there’re so many. Could she have imagined that back in her room, paralyzed with boredom? She has always had a vivid imagination, but she couldn’t process that Earth, a whole separate world, a multitude of languages, practices and traditions, different people and countries – always has been a speck of the cosmos, with histories much bigger and older than her.

So far none of the alien had an idea even remotely similar to soulmates. It puts a whole discourse of soulmates into a new perspective. It puts a whole discourse on the existence of God into a new perspective. They have seen aliens larger than life: ancient, powerful, terrifying – totally godlike. Woods of Olkarion, Balmera, Ziggurat and many more. Meeting such entities is a lot like having a religious experience.

The further from Earth, the more Pidge rethinks her own views and in fact she finds herself leaning towards agnosticism rather than atheism.

Coran stops short of the climax of a recount of his days with fashion pirates (for the seventh time), when the drapes are drawn for a mere moment, and they are hit with a strong wave of dry air, devoid of anything but sand. Guys crawl inside and drop dead on thin cushions. Coran goes around, literally nursing them from a little clayey cup. After a while, one of them jiggles like a worm, refusing to get up and walk like a human being, and gets closer to Pidge.

It’s Lance, obviously. He uncovers his face, blinding her with a grin.

She should comment on him reeking of sweat and how funny he looks in a turban made of wet cloths. The truth is, she must look as ridiculous as he. More ridiculous, because despite turban and Halloween mummy inspired costume, he still manages to look… nice.

Lance reaches out to flick her nose, but stops at the last second and chucked with affinity.

“Wanna check something out? We’ll need to take the Lions, though.”  
“What? Now?” she tries to say that without moving any muscles.  
“Yep.”

She means to say no, but shrugs and nods instead. With a sudden burst of renewed power, Lance jumps up and drinks some more water, eager to take off right away.

“What about others?” she finally croaks.  
“Hunk?” Lance pokes him.  
“No, thanks,” mumbles back the pile of clothes.  
“Shiro?”  
“No.”  
“Coran?”  
“Thank you, but I must decline.”  
“See? They’re quitters. Sad and bitter.”

With a raised eyebrow, Pidge turns to Keith, but before even asking she realizes he’s definitely not interested.

Maybe it’s a smart move, she considers, while entering the world of heat and sand again. They take Blue, because Green channels Pidge’s mood about moving in such weather, and Blue carries them towards the horizon, rigged with steep mountain peaks.

This planet has its own sun, larger than the Earth’s one, like a ball of blazing whiteness. She doesn’t rotate, which means there’s no night and day, and the other side of the planet is nothing more than frozen wastelands. Tribes’ greatest punishment is being stranded on the borders of the eternal night. Throughout the whole known history of several millenniums, there are only six known cases of such sentences. There is also a myth of a lost tribe, though. At the beginning of civilization, there had been Thirteen Tribes, but after the Great War, one of them had been banished forever. However, the Thirteenth Tribe survived, tamed the night and prepared to return one day and get their revenge. Voltron has scanned the surface of the planet while passing and they haven’t noticed any life forms on the icy half, but who knows? Maybe they’re good at hiding. Maybe they’ve gone underground. Maybe they’re ice zombies. Game of Thrones might be onto something.

There is some irony in the fact that one part of the planet suffers from water shortage, while the other is basically covered with water. In times of the greatest needs, there were many expeditions to bring the ice, but only few returned. Not only there is a drastic gap in the temperatures, the only way is through a mountain chain. Being better equipped, Voltron has brought large chunks of ice, but people really need those wells.

Blue gracefully lands on a secret plateau, and Lance commands Pidge to put on the paladin suit. They leave the armor, content with the layered black jumpsuit.

When they exit Blue, Pidge is about to ask what’s it all about, but swallows the question.

The high sky is heavy with reds and orange and smudges of yellow, blues and purples – it looks like a mindless watercolor practice, it looks like nothing she has seen before. They have passed it on their way and she hasn’t even paid attention. It’s not visible from far above.

“One side is eternal day, another is eternal night, and in the middle…”

In the middle is the eternal sunset. Sunrise. Neither and both.

Lance looks smug and rests his elbow on her shoulder. The soulmark pulsates, and she’s afraid for a moment, that he will feel it even through the clothes, but Lance remains oblivious. The cool air gently touches her hurt face and eases the pain.

For once in a while, Pidge doesn’t think anything. She just stands on the edge of a plateau and enjoys the sunset. Or sunrise.

Neither.

Both.


End file.
